Needle exchange debate stirs board

SANTA CRUZ -- The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors once against danced on the tip of a prickly issue Tuesday, revisiting a debate about the county's controversial needle exchange program.

With a 4-1 vote, the county approved a response to a Santa Cruz task force that drilled into local public safety issues. But the debate focused one main aspect of the report -- neighborhood concerns about a county-run needle exchange program, which handed out more than 110,000 syringes during its first six months in operation.

"It's very hard for me to cast a vote that says I'm willing to throw needles in somebody's neighborhood," board chair Zach Friend said, who voted against the response because he didn't feel it sufficiently addressed neighbors' concerns. "That's basically what this is tantamount to."

Since the county took over the program in April 2013 and implemented a one-for-one exchange policy, it has actually taken in more needles than it has given out. The county's top health official, Dr. Lisa Hernandez, also said the number of patients who receive medical exceptions to the exchange rule is less than 1 percent.

Yet local citizen groups such as the Clean Team continue to find thousands of needles, including 281 during a recent cleanup at Harvey West's Evergreen Cemetery. Finding a balance between neighborhood safety concerns and maintaining a public health program supported by medical research and already stricter than state guidelines seemed to frustrate some county officials.

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do about those needles in Harvey West," Chief Administrative Officer Susan Mauriello said. "If somebody has an idea and wants to tell me what to do, other than me going out there and cleaning them up myself -- which I would be willing to do -- I'm not sure what else I could offer."

One factor could be a 2012 law allowing pharmacies to sell up to 30 needles without a prescription. However, the number of local pharmacies doing that is down to six from about a dozen, including just two in the city of Santa Cruz.

The amount of needles on beaches -- the backbone of the county's tourism economy -- is debatable. Santa Cruz nonprofit Save Our Shores conducts regular beach cleanups around the Monterey Bay, usually hitting numerous beaches at once. Since 2007, volunteers have found 1,133 needles during 1,379 cleanups -- fewer than one per cleanup, according to the group.

Supervisor Bruce McPherson, joined by Supervisor Neal Coonerty -- both represent parts of the city of Santa Cruz -- asked county officials to explore a new, non-residential location for syringe exchange program, a report that will come back to a board overseeing the program within 60 days.

"It's just destroying the neighborhood," McPherson said.

County health officials are also looking at ways to track needles handed out by the county, though they said Tuesday it would be difficult. They warned people against collecting used needles, saying they could be exposing themselves to infectious diseases.

"My mandate is to protect the whole county from getting ill," Hernandez said. "Not just I.V. drug users, not just folks with disease, but the whole community."